Relation of Wage-Labour to Capital

What is it that takes place in the exchange between the capitalist and the
wage-labourer?

The labourer receives means of subsistence in exchange for his labour-power;
the capitalist receives, in exchange for his means of subsistence, labour, the
productive activity of the labourer, the creative force by which the worker not
only replaces what he consumes, but also gives to the accumulated labour a
greater value than it previously possessed. The labourer gets from the
capitalist a portion of the existing means of subsistence. For what purpose do
these means of subsistence serve him? For immediate consumption. But as soon as
I consume means of subsistence, they are irrevocably lost to me, unless I
employ the time during which these means sustain my life in producing new means
of subsistence, in creating by my labour new values in place of the values lost
in consumption. But it is just this noble reproductive power that the labourer
surrenders to the capitalist in exchange for means of subsistence received.
Consequently, he has lost it for himself.

Let us take an example. For one shilling a labourer works all day long in
the fields of a farmer, to whom he thus secures a return of two shillings. The
farmer not only receives the replaced value which he has given to the day
labourer, he has doubled it. Therefore, he has consumed the one shilling that
he gave to the day labourer in a fruitful, productive manner. For the one
shilling he has bought the labour-power of the day-labourer, which creates
products of the soil of twice the value, and out of one shilling makes two. The
day-labourer, on the contrary, receives in the place of his productive force,
whose results he has just surrendered to the farmer, one shilling, which he
exchanges for means of subsistence, which he consumes more or less quickly. The
one shilling has therefore been consumed in a double manner –
reproductively for the capitalist, for it has been exchanged for labour-power,
which brought forth two shillings; unproductively for the worker, for it has
been exchanged for means of subsistence which are lost for ever, and whose
value he can obtain again only by repeating the same exchange with the farmer.
Capital therefore presupposes wage-labour; wage-labour presupposes capital.
They condition each other; each brings the other into existence.

Does a worker in a cotton factory produce only cotton? No. He produces
capital. He produces values which serve anew to command his work and to create
by means of it new values.

Capital can multiply itself only by exchanging itself for labour-power, by
calling wage-labour into life. The labour-power of the wage-labourer can
exchange itself for capital only by increasing capital, by strengthening that
very power whose slave it is. Increase of capital, therefore, is increase of
the proletariat, i.e., of the working class.

And so, the bourgeoisie and its economists maintain that the interest of the
capitalist and of the labourer is the same. And in fact, so they are! The
worker perishes if capital does not keep him busy. Capital perishes if it does
not exploit labour-power, which, in order to exploit, it must buy. The more
quickly the capital destined for production – the productive capital
– increases, the more prosperous industry is, the more the bourgeoisie
enriches itself, the better business gets, so many more workers does the
capitalist need, so much the dearer does the worker sell himself. The fastest
possible growth of productive capital is, therefore, the indispensable
condition for a tolerable life to the labourer.

But what is growth of productive capital? Growth of the power of accumulated
labour over living labour; growth of the rule of the bourgeoisie over the
working class. When wage-labour produces the alien wealth dominating it, the
power hostile to it, capital, there flow back to it its means of employment
– i.e., its means of subsistence, under the condition that it again
become a part of capital, that is become again the lever whereby capital is to
be forced into an accelerated expansive movement.

To say that the interests of capital and the interests of the workers are
identical, signifies only this: that capital and wage-labour are two sides of
one and the same relation. The one conditions the other in the same way that
the usurer and the borrower condition each other.

As long as the wage-labourer remains a wage-labourer, his lot is dependent
upon capital. That is what the boasted community of interests between worker
and capitalists amounts to.

If capital grows, the mass of wage-labour grows, the number of wage-workers
increases; in a word, the sway of capital extends over a greater mass of
individuals.

Let us suppose the most favorable case: if productive capital grows, the
demand for labour grows. It therefore increases the price of labour-power,
wages.

A house may be large or small; as long as the neighboring houses are
likewise small, it satisfies all social requirement for a residence. But let
there arise next to the little house a palace, and the little house shrinks to
a hut. The little house now makes it clear that its inmate has no social
position at all to maintain, or but a very insignificant one; and however high
it may shoot up in the course of civilization, if the neighboring palace rises
in equal or even in greater measure, the occupant of the relatively little
house will always find himself more uncomfortable, more dissatisfied, more
cramped within his four walls.

An appreciable rise in wages presupposes a rapid growth of productive
capital. Rapid growth of productive capital calls forth just as rapid a growth
of wealth, of luxury, of social needs and social pleasures. Therefore, although
the pleasures of the labourer have increased, the social gratification which
they afford has fallen in comparison with the increased pleasures of the
capitalist, which are inaccessible to the worker, in comparison with the stage
of development of society in general. Our wants and pleasures have their origin
in society; we therefore measure them in relation to society; we do not measure
them in relation to the objects which serve for their gratification. Since they
are of a social nature, they are of a relative nature.

But wages are not at all determined merely by the sum of commodities for
which they may be exchanged. Other factors enter into the problem. What the
workers directly receive for their labour-power is a certain sum of money. Are
wages determined merely by this money price?

In the 16th century, the gold and silver circulation in Europe increased in
consequence of the discovery of richer and more easily worked mines in America.
The value of gold and silver, therefore, fell in relation to other commodities.
The workers received the same amount of coined silver for their labour-power as
before. The money price of their work remained the same, and yet their wages
had fallen, for in exchange for the same amount of silver they obtained a
smaller amount of other commodities. This was one of the circumstances which
furthered the growth of capital, the rise of the bourgeoisie, in the 18th
century.

Let us take another case. In the winter of 1847, in consequence of bad
harvest, the most indispensable means of subsistence – grains, meat,
butter, cheese, etc. – rose greatly in price. Let us suppose that the
workers still received the same sum of money for their labour-power as before.
Did not their wages fall? To be sure. For the same money they received in
exchange less bread, meat, etc. Their wages fell, not because the value of
silver was less, but because the value of the means of subsistence had
increased.

Finally, let us suppose that the money price of labour-power remained the
same, while all agricultural and manufactured commodities had fallen in price
because of the employment of new machines, of favorable seasons, etc. For the
same money the workers could now buy more commodities of all kinds. Their wages
have therefore risen, just because their money value has not changed.

The money price of labour-power, the nominal wages, do not therefore
coincide with the actual or real wages – i.e., with the amount of
commodities which are actually given in exchange for the wages. If then we
speak of a rise or fall of wages, we have to keep in mind not only the money
price of labour-power, the nominal wages, but also the real wages.

But neither the nominal wages – i.e., the amount of money for which
the labourer sells himself to the capitalist – nor the real wages –
i.e., the amount of commodities which he can buy for this money –
exhausts the relations which are comprehended in the term wages.

Wages are determined above all by their relations to the gain, the profit,
of the capitalist. In other words, wages are a proportionate, relative
quantity.

Real wages express the price of labour-power in relation to the price of
commodities; relative wages, on the other hand, express the share of immediate
labour in the value newly created by it, in relation to the share of it which
falls to accumulated labour, to capital.